Leonard Berkowitz
Professor Emeritus
Ph.D. 1951, University of Michigan
Email: lberkowi@wisc.edu
Although retired, I am still trying to develop my analysis of the formation,
operation, and regulation of emotional states, particularly anger. This
formulation holds that particular feelings, ideas, memories, and expressive-motor
reactions are linked together associatively in an emotion-state network.
The activation of any one of these components through focal attention presumably
activates the other components in the same network. In the case of anger,
it is presumed that any unpleasant feeling will tend to activate rudimentary
anger feelings as well as aggression-related ideas, memories, and expressive-motor
reactions, theoretically because of a biologically determined association
connecting negative affect with these components.
Representative Publications
Berkowitz, L. (1990). On the formation and regulation of anger and aggression:
A cognitive-neoassociationistic analysis. American Psychologist.
Berkowitz, L. (1989). The frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination
and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59-73.
Berkowitz, L. (1987). Mood, self-awareness, and the willingness to help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 721-729.
Berkowitz, L. (1984). Some effects of thoughts on the anti- and prosocial
influences of media events: A cognitive neoassociationistic analysis. Psychological
Bulletin, 95, 410-427.
